The aim of this book is to present the potential benefits as well as the challenges of introducing a more formal economic regulatory process into the urban water sector arena in lower-income countries. There is a particular focus upon the impact this may have on the poorest, the informal, slum and shanty dwellers of the rapidly growing cities. Economic regulation, usually introduced in the context of private operation of monopoly water supply, can deliver objectivity and transparency in the price-setting process for public as well as private providers.

New technology is revolutionizing broadcasting markets. As the cost of bandwidth processing and delivery fall, information-intensive services that once bore little economic relationship to each other are now increasingly related as substitutes or complements.

Much of the discussion focused on when to regulate and when to rely on competition, even if imperfect, to drive efficiency. The discussions underscored that there are opportunities to improve performance significantly in the aviation, rail and road sectors, by learning from successful experience in improving governance structures in a range of countries.

With the aid of economic theory Anthony Ogus critically examines the ways in which public law has been adapted to the task of regulating industrial activity and provides a systematic overview of the theory and forms of social and economic regulation.